The present invention relates to systems that allow a cue sport (e.g. pool, billiards or snooker) to be played by competing players who are shooting on different tables. More particularly, it relates to a system that senses the position of balls on one cue sport table, and then automatically repositions balls on the other table so as to mimic the ball array on the first table.
Cue sports are games where a stick is used to drive a specified ball (typically a cue ball) in relation to other balls on a table (often a cloth covered table with surrounding resilient bumpers). Many such tables have pockets where one aspect of the game is to drive specified balls into the pockets. Other such tables do not have pockets.
In most cue sports the balls positioned on the game table are differently numbered, differently colored and/or differently patterned from each other. For example, in a common form of pocket pool one grouping of the balls are different solid single colors, another grouping of the balls are striped and different colors, and one other ball (the cue ball) is white. As a result, each ball can easily be uniquely visually identified by players.
In most cue sports competitors alternate shots (unless a player earns another shot such as by pocketing a specified type of ball). Also, in competitive cue sports there are most typically two players, albeit in some social matches teams of players compete by alternating shots within a team.
Regardless, cue sport matches have typically required all the competitors to play on the same table so as to be able to shoot from the last position left by their competitor(s). This required competitors to travel to a common location, which added cost and/or restricted competition.
There have been attempts to permit players at remote locations to compete with each other in certain other types of games. For example, card games and chess are now often played on-line, using a virtual display system.
Also, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,361,083 and U.S. patent application publication 2012/0083342 there were disclosures of placing one dart board in one facility, another dart board at another facility, and allowing competitors to compete with each other remotely using those dart boards. An automated system used sensors to determine/referee the result of each round of dart throwing at each facility, communicate those results to the other location, and keep track of scoring.
However, there was no attempt to cause the position of darts on the first board to be mimicked on the second dart board. This somewhat altered the nature of the game as in single location dart competition the players alternate throws. Thus, a second thrower sees the first thrower's dart somewhat “in their way” when they throw.
There have also been attempts to develop robotic cue stick systems such that a player playing live at a given pool table can to some extent compete with someone who is located remotely. In this system, the remote player instructs a robotic system over telecommunications and the robotic system plays against the first player on the first player's table.
A web cam helps identify where particular balls are located on the table, and communicates that information to the remote player. However, this system did not allow the remote player to actually play a shot themselves, as distinguished from instructing a robot to shoot. See Automated Pool Table, www.instructables.com (2008).
Other systems have been developed to automatically determine the positioning of pool balls. For example, it has been proposed to place RFID tags in pool balls and an array of RFID readers around a pool table (e.g. adjacent specified pockets). This was used to identify which balls had been pocketed, and was incorporated into an automated scoring system. See A. Osorno et al., Hustler's INC. Electronic Pool Scoring System Final Design Report (2007). However, this RFID capability was not used to facilitate remote play.
Apart from the desirability of permitting remote play, it is sometimes desirable for a player to have an opportunity to play a pool shot that previously occurred. For example, a player may want the opportunity to repetitively practice a particular shot. Moreover, when the game is at a public place such as a bar there are sometimes situations where a player is accidentally bumped into (or otherwise inappropriately disturbed) as they are shooting a shot. It would be desirable to have the capability for a shot to be retaken (to remove that unfairness from the game).
Further, in some cases it is of interest for players to try a shot that someone (who is not their competitor) made. For example, a match between two champion level players might have had several very unique shots that an amateur want to see if they could make.
In the past, playing a shot that was previously made has required the player to try to remember the prior position of the balls, and then try to manually position the balls. This introduced considerable inaccuracy into those replays, particularly if the prior shot wasn't filmed.
Hence, a need still exists for developing improved ways for cue sport competitors to play each other from remote locations, and in any event for developing improved replay capabilities in cue sports.